Ask Lemmy

We have a miscellaneous drawer of utensils and kitchen tools. Also another drawer of non-kitchen stuff that's just "the kitchen drawer" - screwdrivers, pliers, paper clips, rubber bands, magnets, ruler, magnifying glass.., not exactly "organized" but randomly deposited in compartments of an old generic drawer organizer so at least it's not just a pile. We just call it "the drawer".

Mine is more organised (without dividers, similar stuff simply each has its own space) and still roughly looks like yours.

You're lucky you only have one, and it's only a single layer deep

You could build our repurpose something like a silverware organiser, but fitted to the items in there.

But the true travesty: the scale should be easily accessible and in constant use tsk tsk

(We don't have such a drawer btw)

Wife is always right

Yes, every family I've ever known has had a drawer with bulky oversized kitchen utensils and gadgets. The harder you try to organize these things, the more you will realize that you'd just end up with an entire drawer taken up by a single pizza cutter, garlic press, or zester. Theoretically, if you had enough storage space in your kitchen you could do that, but these things are used so infrequently that they either get shoved into one drawer which fully takes up that one space with disorganized chaos, or placed in a receptacle of some sort to sit on the countertop for when you need it, which is ugly and takes up then takes up the counter space instead.

Looks perfectly fine. Ours is the second drawer though. Top one is for cuttlery

Not only do we have the "one", we each have one in our own space as well.

I'd filter out metal things that has handles like this pizza cutter and meat hammer and try to give them some sort of a stand or a magnet surface to stick them on.

Yes, embrace the drawer

I also have this drawer

We have 3 of them: misc kitchen utensils and tools, misc containers, and misc stuff that does not even belong in the kitchen, but ends up there because that's the only drawers in the house that don't have clothes in them.

If you want to organize it some, you can build or buy dividers and split it up.

Yes, I'm pretty sure everyone has a drawer like that. One thing I'm missing (unless I'm just not looking hard enough) is scissors.

This is true. It is the "occasional use kitchen drawer"

At my parents we had a similar drawer with miscellaneous stuff but it was organised so it looked somewhat tidy. Currently I don't have a drawer like this, cuz I have a tiny kitchen with only one drawer which is reserved for cutlery.

It's your house's shrine to Anoia. Rattle it every once in a while.

Solution: build a new cabinet with a bunch of drawers and put one item in each drawer

Bachelor here, and I do indeed have a random shit drawer. As did my family when I was growing up.

We do not have that drawer. My kitchen is tiny and only has 2 drawers. As a result, our entire apartment is a mess

Dear OP, the only odd thing about your drawer is that your garlic press in in there (unless this is your backup garlic press of course). In our household, we have it in the main cutlery drawer.

BTW, we have several such drawers spread out over our home: one in the kitchen, one in the living room, one in the home office and several in the garage.

Sorry man but I have to side with your wife here. We have even one such junk drawer per room.

• In the kitchen with scissors, jar opener, potato peeler, nut cracker, sticks, tooth picks...
• In the living room with matches, candles, coasters, birthday decoration, fertilizer for house plants, ...
• In the bedroom we even have one per person with protective gear for sports, single socks that have their partner missing, scarves, baseball cap, luggage straps, ...

Could go on with bathroom, laundry room etc. Junk drawers for the win!

Have you ever visited other people's kitchens? Everyone has that drawer.

This drawer is government issued when a house is built. Every family had this drawer. It is load bearing. Removing the contents of this drawer will cause irreparable damage to the house.

The problem is not the organization or lack thereof, the problem is that someone in your household buys too many niche specialized single-purpose kitchen tools. Wtf is that thing with the green handle?

I try to donate any kitchen tool that I haven't used in a year or two.

Yeah, we have this drawer. There are always going to be some tools you use in the kitchen enough to justify the purchase but not enough to be in any of the daily driver drawers. Honestly, this is not bad, we have a drawer that is the awkward necessary crap drawer for the awkward necessary crap drawer.

I do not have this drawer.

I have two of this drawer.

You could get rid of half of that stuff at least

We have several of those drawers.

Bits and bobs drawer. Yep

What is the green thing with the white blades?

It's the stuff drawer. Why are you like this?

I think there are some sharp as well as blunt instruments that can be used to help resolving that disagreement.

There isn’t a house in existence that doesn’t have one of these. All houses that exist have one of these by celestial mandate.

I wish I could open mine.

The only reason I don't have such a drawer, is an overall lack of drawers in my house, don't really have one to spare to be a junk drawer.

Which is a damn shame because I could really use a drawer to throw some miscellaneous odds and hands that don't have any other designated place to live.

We have two OP. That drawer is as american as low taxes for the rich.

We don't have one, we have multiple

We have four of these drawers. What helps is organization trays of different sizes and a junk cupboard.

Long skinny things fit here, curved things go here, bulky things get piled up in the cupboard.

Sorry OP - we all hate it too, but everyone has this. Your drawer doesn’t even look that bad. (You were able to OPEN it!)

Correct, we have this drawer. And what sucks is that it has been broken for about 20 years.